Tag: timely

Joel Embiid loved the number of 3-pointers Sixers took vs. Clippers

Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid is happy that the team launched a bunch of 3-pointers against the Los Angeles Clippers.

When a team has such a dominant big man like the Philadelphia 76ers do in Joel Embiid, the other guys on the roster have to do their part in order to space the floor and give him enough room to go to work.

That means they must put up 3-pointers and knock them down at a clip that makes teams pay attention to them. In Friday’s win over the Los Angeles Clippers, the Sixers launched 44 shots from deep and made 14 of them. They made 10 of those 3-pointers in the first half, but they were able to knock them down enough to help Embiid attack the Clippers.

“For sure,” said Embiid. “For example, they doubled me all over the floor tonight. When we started the second half and we kept posting me up and as soon as I touched the ball, they were coming, and I just kept having a bunch of touch passes.”

One of the big reasons for that was the threat of having Furkan Korkmaz out on the perimeter. The fourth-year guard from Turkey knocked down five of his 12 attempts from deep as he certainly had the attention of the Clippers all night long.

“Furkan made a 3 out of that play,” Embiid added. “Just like that, they started going now single coverage, just because of how many 3s they have been giving up.”

When the Sixers are launching a bunch of 3-pointers as they did on Friday, that allows Embiid to do his thing down low. He faces constant double teams on a regular basis, and the help from the perimeter allows him to face more single coverage.

“If teams are gonna want to double, my job is to make the right play,” he explained. “To either score or to find my wide-open teammates and if they start making shots so if we’re getting a lot of 3s, now you leave me playing one on one which is hard to guard for anybody in this league. That’s what I’ve been saying. When we shoot a lot 3s, it’s hard to double. You could see in that third quarter and fourth quarter, it was harder for them to double.”

With Korkmaz getting into a bit of a groove, one can also see his confidence growing. He has certainly had his ups and downs on the floor, but right now, he feels as if he is in a rhythm and he feels that he has found his role in Philadelphia.

“I’m feeling really good right now,” said Korkmaz. “I feel like I’m helping the team a lot, offensive and defensive end. I can handle the ball sometimes when I play with Ben (Simmons) and Jo, also I’m putting the ball down which is really important, and I feel pretty good.”

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Where Notre Dame players go in The Athletic’s latest mock draft

How many Notre Dame players will get drafted this year?

Mock Draft season is here in full force as we’re now just two weeks until the 2021 NFL draft takes place in Cleveland.

We’ve seen a bunch in the last few days and had pieces on a couple of them while others had gone unaddressed at Fighting Irish Wire.

One we came across and felt the need to share was done by Dane Brugler of The Athletic and has picked all seven rounds.  In his most recent mock draft Brugler has eight Notre Dame players getting drafted which would tie the record for most in a single year of the Brian Kelly era as the 2014 NFL draft also saw eight players go.

Here is who Brugler has getting selected from Notre Dame, where he has them going, and who he doesn’t think will get their name called on the draft weekend:

Warriors at Celtics: Live stream, lineups, injury reports and broadcast info for Saturday

All you need to know ahead of Saturday’s Warriors-Celtics game.

Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors visit TD Garden to take on Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics on Saturday night, and if you’re wondering how you can watch the action live, you’ve come to the right place.

Both the Warriors and Celtics enter Saturday’s nationally televised showcase game in great form. Golden State (28-28) has won four consecutive games, and Curry has eclipsed the 30-point mark in each of the Warriors’ last seven games. Jaylen Brown went for 40 points in a win over the Lakers on Thursday, as Celtics (30-26) extended their current winning streak to five games.

Here’s when you should tune in to see the game:

  • Date: Saturday, Apr. 17
  • Time: 8:30 p.m. ET
  • TV Channel: ABC
  • Live Stream: fuboTV (watch for free)

READ: 2021 NBA Mock Draft consensus 3.0: The complete first round after the NCAA Tournament

Injury Report:

Golden State: Kelly Oubre Jr. (left wrist soreness) is questionable. Eric Paschall (hip), Klay Thompson (Achilles) and James Wiseman (meniscus tear) are out.

Boston: Evan Fournier (health and safety protocol) and Robert Williams III (left knee soreness) are out.

Probable starting lineups

Golden State Warriors

  • F Andrew Wiggins
  • F Draymond Green
  • C Kevon Looney
  • G Kent Bazemore
  • G Steph Curry

Boston Celtics

  • F Jayson Tatum
  • C Tristan Thompson
  • G Kemba Walker
  • G Marcus Smart
  • G Jaylen Brown

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Attorney of man who accused Aaron Donald of assault apologizes

Todd Hollis, the attorney of DeVincent Spriggs, has issued an apology to Aaron Donald after his client accused Donald of assault.

The attorney of DeVincent Spriggs, who accused Aaron Donald of assaulting him last weekend, has issued an apology after surveillance video of the incident surfaced Friday. Todd Hollis, Spriggs’ attorney, says it clearly was not Donald who left his client with several injuries outside a party in Pittsburgh on April 11.

“I wanted to make this statement public. And to extend an apology to Aaron for what he’s gone through, but I clearly know this was not him,” Hollis said in a statement to KDKA in Pittsburgh.

The video appeared to show Donald coming to Spriggs’ aid as he was being beaten by others, pushing people away from him to break up the fight. The altercation occurred after Spriggs allegedly swung a liquor bottle at Donald’s head, which is when those around Donald came to his defense.

Donald’s attorney, Casey White, said in a radio interview Friday that Donald “actually saved Mr. Spriggs from further injury.”

“There’s no dispute that Mr. Spriggs is injured, but the other people that were there were responsible, I guess, for protecting Mr. Donald and in turn, caused the injuries to Mr. Spriggs,” White said. “He does get punched, he does get slammed, he does get kicked in the head. It’s violent, but the whole time, Mr. Donald, Aaron is being restrained.”

White also said Pittsburgh police told him they agreed that the video evidence did not show Donald assaulting Spriggs. The full video of the incident was not made public, but a part of it was released Friday.

Rams players seemed to come to Donald’s defense Friday after White provided video evidence of the altercation, with David Long Jr. sharing the following message on Twitter. It was quote tweeted by Ogbonnia Okoronkwo and Jordan Fuller.

Donald also shared Terrelle Pryor’s post on his Instagram story, as seen below.

Donald, a Pittsburgh native, typically trains there in the offseason. He’s spent his entire seven-year career thus far with the Rams and is a three-time Defensive Player of the Year.

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Sixers coach Doc Rivers happy with Anthony Tolliver in win vs. Clippers

Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers was happy with what he saw from Anthony Tolliver against the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Philadelphia 76ers were put in a tough spot on Friday when they found out that they would be without the services of Tobias Harris, Seth Curry, and Dwight Howard in a matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers. The Sixers were able to gut out a 106-103 win as they were able to make enough plays to win the game.

Coach Doc Rivers had to go deep into his bench rotation and he called upon newly added Anthony Tolliver in this one. Tolliver had just recently signed a 10-day contract with the team and with Philadelphia missing so many pieces, he had to step in and play in an emergency situation.

Tolliver’s stat line will read zero points on 0-for-2 shooting, both from deep, but he also had two rebounds and he blocked a shot in 14:07 of playing time. Not bad for a guy who does not know much about the team at the moment.

“He was great,” said Rivers. “I feel bad for him. He didn’t know anything, I mean, play-wise. We put him at the 5 and the 4, and I was laughing with Dave Joerger, I said ‘It doesn’t matter. He didn’t know either position anyway! We can put him at the point guard’. He didn’t know any position.”

Tolliver is known as a 3-point shooter and even though he missed his only looks, he was able to attract the attention of the Clippers when he was out there.

“We just wanted him out there to space the floor, and I thought he did that,” said Rivers. “I thought he actually made a couple of pretty good defensive plays for us as well.”

Tolliver will have two days to learn his new team more before Monday’s matchup with the Golden State Warriors.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Sixers discuss mental errors, fighting fatigue in win over Clippers

The Philadelphia 76ers discuss mental errors and fighting fatigue in a win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Philadelphia 76ers were able to walk away with a 106-103 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday in order to keep their lead over the Brooklyn Nets for the race for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. However, it did not come easy as the Clippers certainly made them work for it.

Los Angeles caught fire from deep and they were able to knock down some shots in order to get themselves back into the game before Philadelphia put them away late. It was a game that the Sixers can be proud of as they were down two starters as well as a key bench player in the win.

The Sixers also did hurt themselves a bit with some mental errors. The schedule has been so compact since the All-Star break and there have been so many games that the team has not had much of a break. It seemed to affect them when it came to their defensive effort and little mistakes on offense.

“I was not happy at halftime, because I think we were up 12 and I really thought we should have been up 20,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Whenever that happens, you know the second half is going to be a game where I thought we had a chance to take them out in the first half and we didn’t take advantage of that.”

Rivers was not wrong about that. Philadelphia started the game up 20-3 as they jumped on Los Angeles early and they threatened to pull away, but the Clippers cut it to 12 going into the half. They then took a lead in the second half as the Sixers were left scrambling.

“I thought we played really hard. I thought they played really hard and I thought there were a lot of mistakes from both teams,” Rivers finished. “A little bit of that was fatigue. You can see that. The harder and more tired you get, the brain is the first thing to cut off, and you can see that a little bit tonight.”

From a player standpoint, this schedule has been brutal. Games almost every other day and then on the off days, they are not truly real off days. The players have to get up early and go get tested every day and that can affect their play on the floor both physically and mentally.

“It could have been fatigue, but there’s things we got to clean up and build habits on,” said Simmons. “We gotta get some good habits in there in terms of our defense.”

The Sixers will now have two needed days off before facing the Golden State Warriors on Monday at home.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Comeback kids do it again as Notre Dame beats NC State

That’s the first place Fighting Irish baseball team in case you were wondering.

After falling behind 2-0 in Friday’s series opener at Eck Stadium, the No. 7 Notre Dame baseball team did what they’ve done several times already this year:

Came back to win.

Jack Brannigan was the star of the night for the now 17-6 (15-6 in ACC) Fighting Irish as he batted in all three runs in the 3-2 victory.

Trailing 2-0 in the bottom of the fourth with two on and two outs, Brannigan came through with a single up the middle to score both runners and tie the game at two.

Still tied at two in the bottom of the eighth, big bopper Niko Kavadas got things going with a one-out walk before Carter Putz and Jack Zyska both singled to load the bases.  It was then Brannigan getting hit on an 0-2 pitch that batted in the eventual winning run.

Will Mercer was solid on the mound for the Irish, allowing only two runs in five innings while Tanner Kohlhepp was outstanding, going the final four innings in relief and allowing just one baserunner.

The loss ended the Wolfpack’s six-game winning streak and propelled the Irish into first place in the ACC’s Atlantic division as Louisville lost 8-7 at Virginia in extra innings Friday.

Game two of the weekend series between Notre Dame and NC State is set to get started at 2 p.m. ET at Eck Stadium on Saturday and can be seen on ACC Extra Network.

Sixers not upset, but not happy with defensive effort in win over Clippers

The Philadelphia 76ers were not upset, but they also were not happy with their defense either in a win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Philadelphia 76ers are one of the better defensive teams in the league as they entered Friday night ranked second in the league in defensive rating at 107.2. They even had a solid defensive night on Friday as they were able to win it 106-103 over an explosive Los Angeles Clippers team at home.

However, there were some big things that stood out. Los Angeles shot 19-for-39 from deep and they were 6-for-9 from deep in the third quarter. The Clippers used a big effort in that stanza in order to take the lead and reserve Patrick Patterson had 10 points in the fourth quarter on 3-for-3 shooting from deep.

“Schematically, we had some mistakes,” said coach Doc Rivers. “They were running the pick-and-roll up to the top. We’re supposed to show, we kept getting tangled up, and their guy kept slipping loose or rolling, and it really hurt us.”

The Sixers were scrambling on that end of the floor as they had to go deeper into their bench in order to stop the Clippers, but it was not just the bench unit. The starters were not disciplined with their defensive assignments and there were times where Joel Embiid was caught not hustling back to the 3-point line for a contest. The Sixers also did force a lot of turnovers which was a big help.

“We gave up 19 threes and they had 39 attempts which I didn’t like,” Rivers added. “I thought we didn’t show great discipline leaving guys leaving the corner, but overall, I liked the intensity. I liked our pressure. We forced guys into turnovers and that’s the stuff we have to do. They had 19 turnovers tonight. I thought that was the difference in the game”

On the flip side, this is what the Clippers do when it comes to their offense. They have a lot of shooters on the roster who can knock down a lot of open looks created by Paul George and others.

“I wouldn’t say we struggled much, that’s what they do,” said Embiid, “They love to take a lot of threes and make a lot of threes. There were a few times where we made a lot of mistakes, especially me, leaving a corner. They had a bunch of wide-open shots and we should never leave the corner.”

Embiid is not wrong about that. The Clippers entered the game with the best offensive rating in the NBA at 118.5 and they also entered with the best team 3-point shooting percentage at 41.8% as a team, both per basketball-reference.

“I got to do a better job, but that’s what they do,” Embiid added. “They love to shoot a lot of threes and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it. You can just do your best to defend.”

At the end of the day, the Sixers got the win and that’s all that matters. The big thing is, they just have to clean up some mistakes on that end that they normally don’t make. The Clippers just did a great job of moving the ball and speeding Philadelphia up. On top of that, they were missing an underrated defender in Tobias Harris.

“The good news is we won the game, we can work on it, but we made mistakes that we don’t make in pick-and-roll coverage and we did over and over,” Rivers finished. “We did in the first half and they didn’t take advantage of it. Give Ty (Lue) credit, he saw it, and then they started doing it.”

The Sixers will now have two days off before hosting the Golden State Warriors on Monday.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Rams players to skip voluntary offseason workouts due to COVID-19

Los Angeles Rams players will train on their own this spring, opting to skip voluntary offseason workouts.

The Los Angeles Rams issued a statement on Friday night saying their players will not participate in the team’s voluntary offseason workout program. They’re the 16th team in the NFL to have players skip in-person workouts, citing health concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The statement was released on the NFLPA’s Twitter account on behalf of the Rams. You can read the full statement below, which says that players “use the offseason to rest, recover and then rebuild for another run the following year.”

In the statement, it says they feel it’s “unnecessary at this time for players to be volunteering to put themselves at risk for in-person workouts,” considering players are currently training on their own across the country and doing so safely.

Players won’t be required to attend team workouts until mandatory minicamp begins in June, with all OTAs and prior sessions being completely voluntary. That means they cannot be fined for skipping the offseason workout program, which was set to begin on Monday.

On this day: Celtics set record for biggest single-season turnaround

On this day, the Boston Celtics set the record for the greatest single-season turnaround in NBA history.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, the NBA would cancel a game between the Boston Celtics and the Indiana Pacers a day after the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks that occurred in 2013. The move was made out of respect for the victims of the bombing after an initial postponement, and the game was ultimately not rescheduled.

The cancellations did not impact the postseason, as seeds that could have otherwise have been impacted were already locked into their position, marking the most recent season the NBA has had an odd number of regular-season games as a result, with 1,229 games played.

An NHL game between the Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators was also canceled on the day of the Marathon bombings which was also to be held at TD Garden.